Animal testing, and why we should allow it.

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Animal Testing is a major issue that many are concerned with. There are many who believe that animal testing should be allowed, and many who believe it should not. While there are a number of reasons why animal testing should be continued, some are that animal testing has allowed many life-saving treatments and cures to be created, animals can be used for testing because of the many similarities they have with human beings, animals themselves often benefit from the animal tests results.

First, a cause for animal testing to remain is the many treatments and cures that it has procured. For instance, the California Biomedical Research Station states, “nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly from research involving animals.” As the Procon website says, “The experiments in which dogs had their pancreases removed caused the discovery of insulin, a life-saving substance for diabetics. Polio vaccine, which was tested on animals, reduced the disease from 350,000 cases in 1988 to 27 cases in 2016.” Some other conditions that animal testing has helped to treat and understand is, breast cancer, brain injury, childhood leukemia, cystic fibrosis, malaria, multiple sclerosis, tuberculosis, and many more. Secondly, animals have many similarities with humans, and makes them good test subjects. Procon website states, “Chimpanzees share 99% of DNA with humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar to humans.” All mammals have the same set of organs, and function in much the same way. As a result animals are able to get many of the same diseases as humans. Lastly, animals benefit from the testing as well. Many of the vaccines that were tested on animals actually prevented many animal deaths. Animal testing has been a key component for saving endangered species, like the black-footed ferret, the California condor, and tamarins of Brazil. Koalas, currently being ravaged by the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia, are being given chlamydia vaccines that will slow the infection rate and treat earlier stages.

In conclusion, animal testing is a very good thing. Testing should remain legal and practiced. Animal testing has been the cause of many life-saving treatments. Many animals, largely mammals, make good test subjects because of their similarities to humans. Humans are not the only ones to benefit, the animals do as well.